Category Archives: exterior design

Buy it in winter, dig it out and build it in spring, so you can swim every day from the beginning of summer.

A self-installed, in-ground, concrete, insulated, steel-walled, foil-lined pool will be presented, including the installation of a counter-current system and heat pump pool heating.

Background

Have you ever experienced this?

You don’t need a large dog for this. It’s enough to have a tired foil inflatable pool, from which air is slowly but steadily escaping, and a curious cat, who, preferably in the middle of the night, presses down the edge of the pool to see what’s inside. Once it does, the edge won’t come back up due to the low air pressure, and by the time you wake up from the sound of the gushing water and rush out, the garden is already ankle-deep in water.

This is when you decide you want a safer solution.

The choice fell on a steel-walled foil-lined pool, and since the manufacturer suggested that the pool should be at least 30 cm deep in the ground for side stability, we got the idea to dig it in completely. This way, it doesn’t overwhelm the relatively small garden.

Continue reading Pool Construction DIY – With Counter-Current System →

When overwintering oleanders, it is essential to consider the cold winter weather conditions in Hungary. Oleanders are tropical plants and are prone to freezing in cold weather.

Last year, the oleanders survived outdoors. They are hopefully awaiting another mild winter.

Continue reading Outdoor overwintering experiment with oleanders – 2.0 →

Two years ago, I bought a single plant to enhance my rock garden. I didn’t expect it to be such a vigorous and fast-spreading plant, beautiful even without flowers. Over two years, my single plant has multiplied into hundreds.

Since I initially bought it for rock garden decoration, it worked very well but I found it also suppressed other plants. Therefore, I had to cut off the runners. It’s easy to propagate, and almost all cuttings survived.

Continue reading Creeping bugleweed (Ajuga reptans) – green in winter, burgundy in summer as a robust ground cover →

In Mediterranean countries, oleanders grow wild, but in Central Europe, they can only survive if kept in pots and overwintered in a protected place. – For now!

When you first get your oleander and enjoy the first blooms, you water it, feed it, overwinter it, and you’ll have a pretty but leggy plant. People will tell you to cut it back, but you might be afraid to, seeing that flowers grow at the ends of the branches. If you cut the ends, there won’t be any place for flowers to grow. Eventually, the time will come when it no longer fits in its overwintering spot, and you’ll have to prune it drastically.

And behold! – It becomes bushier, denser, and though it blooms later, it rewards you with even more flowers.

It’s easier if you have several oleanders, allowing you to cut back half of them drastically every other year. Over the years and decades, you can have oleanders with very characteristic trunks.

Continue reading Oleanders for creating a mediterranean garden atmosphere →